Re: Privilege Levels Below User

On Sun, 16 Jun 2024 12:47:40 -0000 (UTC), Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:

h.264 is/was extremely heavily patented, the MPEGLA patent consortium
list for what patent they include in their license is 58 pages[1], with
three colums!

But here’s the fun thing: a proprietary OS like Windows can include MPEG-4
H.264 playback for free, but if you want to play older-format DVD-Video
(MPEG-2), that’s an extra cost.

Or it was, unless those patents have all expired by now.

H.265 is even worse. MPEG-LA has its own patent pool for that, but I think
there is an entirely separate group also claiming “intellectual property”
rights on aspects of that.

This is why Google and others are promoting AV1. That’s meant to be
comparable to H.265 in performance and quality, but completely patent-
unencumbered.

Which has not stopped some greedy groups from claiming they’re bound to
have some patents somewhere that are likely to apply. Details not publicly
available, of course.

Now you know why the FFmpeg project is based in Hungary. Funny thing about
US patents, is that they only apply in the US.